Ethiopia: Life-giving water flows in Ethiopia

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Ethiopia: Life-giving water flows in Ethiopia

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Life-giving water flows in Ethiopia

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) - April 6, 2006

In the eastern horn of Africa, a dearth of rainfall is adding to the hardship of a lack of access to clean, reliable sources of drinking water. The drought is causing food shortages that affect the lives and well-being of 11 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia.

In Alem Tena, a town in the semiarid central Ethiopian Rift Valley, there is cause for hope. A brand new drill rig, purchased through the generosity of Catholic Relief Services donors and operated by the Ethiopian Catholic Church, has struck water.

Bekele Abaire of CRS/Ethiopia conveyed the news to his colleagues in a February 27 e-mail: "CRS and its partners are facing the challenges to address the problem of thirsty and hungry people. Facts speak from the field. New drilling rig harvested enormous amount of water with minimum estimate of 15 liters per second."

Funds for the drilling rig came from about a dozen donors in North Dakota and the northeastern United States. The water drilling rig -- hopefully the first of two -- cost about $700,000 and was purchased from Atlas Copco Drilling Solutions of Garland, Texas. CRS has entered into a partnership with Atlas Copco, which will provide assistance with water development strategies throughout Africa in the coming year.

"This project will bring about immediate positive impact in the lives of the people in the area by providing abundant and good-quality water to the communities served," said CRS/Ethiopia Country Representative David Orth-Moore. "Just as important, women and girl children will benefit greatly from the close proximity of the well to reduce the time and distance they spend carrying water to their homes."

The new drilling rig will supplement the work of two older machines that CRS purchased in the 1980s. These two older rigs have been used to dig about 350 boreholes that are providing water to 1.5 million people. The rigs have worked well, but have seen their production fall by 50 percent due to wear and age. Each new rig provided by CRS to our partners will make clean, safe and reliable water available to more than 1 million people over the next two to three decades.

The central Ethiopian Rift Valley is known for frequent drought, leading to high food insecurity among the population. In addition, while water is available in shallow wells of up to 150 feet, there is a high fluoride content, resulting in dental and skeletal fluorosis. This is manifested in advanced tooth decay resulting in blackening of the teeth and eventual crippling of the skeletal system to the point where people are badly hunched and unable to move. A recent study in the Rift Valley indicated a fluoride content of up to 7 mg per liter of water, which is far above the World Health Organization recommended level of below 1.5 mg per liter.

Alem Tena and many of the surrounding towns have appealed to Alem Tena Catholic Church several times for assistance to provide drinking water that does not have high levels of fluoride. In 10 projects, CRS/Ethiopia developed an innovative defluoridation process in conjunction with the University of Addis Ababa. These systems, while effective, are costly and not replicable on a wide scale. A more cost-effective way to reduce fluoride is to dig deeper boreholes which, before the purchase of the new Atlas Copco T3W rig, was very expensive and beyond the reach of both government and local communities.

The new water drilling rig is able to dig very deep boreholes -- up to 1200 feet. Given the priority in finding safe water for the communities in the Rift Valley, the Alem Tena Catholic Church appealed to the Ethiopian Catholic Church, which manages the rig, to immediately dig a deep borehole at a site located just 2 kilometers south of Alem Tena town that would provide water to both this town and surrounding rural communities.

Based on the result of an assessment, CRS/Ethiopia funded one deep borehole drilling from the USAID/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and its private fund. The project area is characterized by complex geological formations where drilling is generally difficult. However, the high-tech Atlas Copco T3W rig overcame this challenge, striking an enormous amount of water at 153 meters (nearly 500 feet) below the ground. The new well will serve about 20,000 people in Alem Tena and the surrounding area.

The townspeople are jubilant over their new well. They could immediately taste the difference in the water quality. An elderly man and woman expressed their joy that the lower fluoride content meant their grandchildren would not have to suffer from blackened teeth or skeletal weakening: "For us we are born again."

SOURCE:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db9 ... enDocument
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